Hymns echoed down the stairwell on a cold December morning. But they were not in English, or in the Norwegian of the Knudsens, Pedersens and other long-dead Scandinavians who are commemorated on the faded stained-glass windows.

Downstairs the descendants of the Norwegians continued to worship as they have done for decades at Our Saviour’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge neighborhood.

But the Arabic prayers and responses heard upstairs were from a newer congregation that shares the building. The Salam Arabic Lutheran Church has become a home for Arab Christians, many of whom fled the Middle East. Some escaped violence in Syria and Iraq. Others say life was made difficult by armed gangs, kidnappers and extortionists, jihadi extremists or Israeli soldiers and settlers.

There are other Arab churches in New York, but Salam Arabic is truly a kaleidoscope of Middle East Christianity. Side by side in its pews are Greek and Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Iraqi Chaldeans, Lebanese Maronites, Egyptian Copts and Greek Orthodox from the Galilee in northern Israel.

Its pastor is the Rev. Khader N. El-Yateem, a 45-year-old Palestinian who was born in the West Bank village of Beit Jala and came to New York two decades ago to minister to a growing Christian Arab diaspora.

Many came here because of intimidation and may never return home. Amid the incense, hymns and chants of “Amin,” there is lingering fear.

“We have an influx of new immigrants now due to the unrest in the Middle East, due to the uprisings, the Israeli occupation, the political struggle, the economy, people coming to this country looking for a better future for their children, and we are seeing more and more Christian immigrants coming here,” Pastor El-Yateem said. “Recently, of course, the immigrants are coming from Syria.”

A man who arrived in New York from Damascus, Syria, seven months ago said he was now in need of the same support services that he provided in his homeland to Iraqi Christians when they fled the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. As he spoke, his wife implored him not to give his name, to avoid possible reprisals against relatives still in Syria.

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Members of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church and the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church in Brooklyn at their tree-lighting ceremony.Credit
Michael Appleton for The New York Times

At the next table Afifa Soleman said she left Egypt three decades ago because her husband and sons were being targeted. “There was oppression in our country against Christians,” she said, adding that she calls family members in Cairo every two weeks to check on them. “There is no safety at all.”

The rapid political shifts in the Middle East mean that Pastor El-Yateem’s congregation, with an average Sunday attendance of about 50, is neither a stable nor a wealthy one. The minister calls it “the Church of the Revolving Door.”

Because of the turmoil in Egypt, chaos in Syria and renewed violence in Iraq that afflicts all religions and sects, there are few reliable statistics about the flight of religious populations in the Middle East. Church leaders in Damascus say that more than 450,000 Syrian Christians have fled their homes during more than two years of violence, but organizations that monitor religious populations are wary of numbers.

A study released in June by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity said that from 1970 to 2010 the percentage of Christians in the Middle East dropped from 7.1 percent to 4.2 percent. But Prof. Todd Johnson, the director of the center, at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Mass., said it was impossible to know precisely how many had left.

“It is always something that is understood better after people show up in other countries,” he said.

In Iraq, dozens of Christians are among the many Iraqis leaving Baghdad every month, according to the Rev. Andrew White, the vicar of St. George’s Church there.

“I meet with other church leaders in Iraq, and over the last year we have seen at least 20 families leaving each month,” he said by telephone from his heavily fortified Anglican church in Baghdad. “Take my church. Three years ago it had 6,000 members, now it has 3,000.”

For his work at Salam Arabic Lutheran Church, Pastor El-Yateem is praised by a fellow cleric, Bishop Gregory John Mansour, at Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral in Brooklyn Heights.

“This particular church is unique, because of the charisma of the pastor, who is a great bridge builder,” said Bishop Mansour, who is secretary of an organization called Christian Arab and Middle Eastern Churches Together.

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Many worshipers at the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church fled violence in the Middle East.Credit
Michael Appleton for The New York Times

He pointed out that many churches in the Middle East helped Muslims as well as Christians and that Christians often received help from their Muslim neighbors. “This is not the fault of Islam,” Bishop Mansour said of the violence. “This is the fault of geopolitical issues that some leaders would use, and some thugs would use an Islamic battle cry. The dynamic has almost always been the same.”

In Bay Ridge, the history of Our Saviour’s parallels that of many immigrant churches in New York. It was built 80 years ago by new arrivals from Norway, but its dwindling numbers can no longer fill the main ground-floor church. There were about 20 worshipers at a recent service.

Older members remember when the pews were full. Sonja Nerjes, 83, said that numbers fell through the 20th century as seafarers and other immigrants stopped coming, younger families moved to Staten Island and elsewhere, and others left when their homes — including hers in 1960 — were bulldozed to make way for the construction and expansion of the Gowanus Expressway.

“That, and death,” Mrs. Nerjes said. “I feel sad because I know that we are not going to have that kind of congregation again.”

The recent wave of immigrants has brought new lifeblood and much-needed rental income. More than 60 members of the two congregations attended a joint ceremony to light a Christmas tree, and the chatter over cake and coffee later was in English and Arabic.

Still, there is a gulf between the communities’ experiences. “I rarely hear from them about what they have left,” said the Rev. Craig A. Miller, pastor of Our Saviour’s, who quickly learned to steer clear of Middle Eastern affairs during joint services.

“I got caught preaching a sermon and mentioned Syria, and the violence which was just starting in Syria,” he said. “One of the women started talking back at me, so Pastor El-Yateem, who was translating my sermon into Arabic, then had to translate her comments back to me in English, and I realized ‘I have got to move on to another topic, because this one’s a little touchy.’ ”

But mostly there is cordiality and mutual respect, though some of the new arrivals are struggling to adjust. “Someone of my age, I want the warmth of home,” said Shatha Yamoor, a 62-year-old Iraqi Chaldean. “I just want stability.”

When she sees reports of violence in Baghdad, she calls friends and former neighbors to see whether they are O.K. She wants to return to Iraq one day, but when asked if she believed she would be able to, she answered “God willing” in the Arabic term common to Muslim and Christian alike — “Inshallah.”

Reem Makhoul contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on December 24, 2013, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: As Lutherans Exit Pews, Arab Christians Move In. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe